Brian Newman, a Midwesterner hustling to make it as a jazz musician in New York City, was hanging at the Lower East Side bar St. Jerome’s with other hungry artists trying to catch their break.
“That particular bar, kind of dirty, cheap beers and smoke-filled, all that kind of stuff,” says Newman, the jazz trumpeter, vocalist, bandleader and former St. Jerome’s bartender. “But everybody that was hanging out there, there were so many people that were in the fashion industry or music or film or writing, they’re all doing things. It was one of the first places that I went to in New York, coming from Cleveland, where I was like, ‘Oh man, I can do whatever I want to do. I can be what I want. These people accept me for what I am, a jazz trumpeter hanging in a rock and roll bar.’”
One of the people he befriended there was Stefani Germanotta, who was go-go dancing and running a Friday night series with DJ Starlight. When Germanotta became the global superstar Lady Gaga, she and Newman continued to cross paths. He’d eventually play a central role in her acclaimed albums and concerts with Tony Bennett. They became so close that Newman and his wife, the acclaimed burlesque performer Angie Pontani, chose Gaga to be the godmother to their daughter.
“She started coming to see me at like the Oak Room at the Plaza and then at Duane Park in Tribeca. Her sitting in with me singing was huge,” Newman says. “First of all, we were just having so much fun, but it was incredible and the response was incredible. That was pretty much the beginning of it, and then she started to call me. I remember we were at the bar at St. Jerome’s and she asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to do the Today show with me?’ I said, ‘Let me check my schedule.’ No, I’m just kidding, I said ‘of course.’ Then we did the Robin Hood Gala together and BBC Radio One Big Weekend and a few other things here in between.”
The Robin Hood Gala charity event in 2011 in NYC proved auspicious for both Gaga and Newman.
“The Robin Hood Gala happened to be where Tony Bennett was at the show, and that’s where they ended up meeting backstage. Somebody came back in the dressing room. They’re like, ‘Mr. Tony Bennett would like to come and say hello.’ And we and we were just like, ‘what?’”
Newman served as the jazz bandleader and trumpet soloist on Gaga and Bennett’s albums “Cheek to Cheek” (2014) and “Love for Sale” (2021) and arranged and performed with quartet on their “Cheek to Cheek” tour. He contributed to the duo’s TV specials for PBS and at their final joint concert, at Radio City, in 2021, which was Bennett’s final public performance.
Newman, who earned a Grammy as a co-producer for Gaga’s version of “La Vie en Rose” on the “A Star Is Born” soundtrack, is a fixture on the international jazz and contemporary music scene, working as a trumpeter, band leader and the creative director for Bruno Mars’s Pinky Ring at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Earlier this year, he released his album “Songs for Lonely Lovers,” a celebration of the Great American Songbook. He’ll celebrate the deluxe vinyl release of the album on Friday at Joanne Trattoria, the family restaurant and music room on the Upper West Side operated by Joe Germanotta, who is Gaga’s father.
Joining Newman at the vinyl release party as a special guest will be Pontani, a frequent collaborator. They also cohost a podcast called “Showing Off.”
“It’s her birthday, so she’s going to come down and party and she’ll do a number or two, and the band’s going to play music from that record and some of the new stuff that we’re doing,” says Newman.
For Newman, who grew up on rock as well as jazz, the American songbook is on overflowing volume.
“For me, the Great American Songbook is Gershwin, it’s Kurt Weill, it’s Cole Porter,” he says. “But at the same time, as a student of jazz music and a student of American music, it also means my influences are maybe Nirvana or Thin Lizzy. When Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk were taking the jazz standards and at the time the Broadway popular music of the time, taking songs like ‘How High the Moon’ and turning them into their own harmonies and their own melodies, I feel like I try to do the same thing now with some of my influences from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s.
“’Songs for Lonely Lovers’ is not that album. That’s a harkening back to the classic era of the Great American Songbook. But for me, that means everything. It’s Cole Porter and it’s Sting and it’s Bruce Springsteen and Willie Nelson. All this beautiful stuff is part of our lexicon and our influences.”
Holding the show at Joanne – Newman also played on the Gaga album “Joanne,” which turned 10 this year – is “super special,” he says.
“We’ve been trying to get a date on the books to do a show there, and we’ve done some private events there, I played there a few times during the pandemic with my long Barry Gibb hair and everybody wearing masks and 25% capacity and all that. But this is something special because it’s all about family for us, and this particular show, it’s all about family.”
He continues: “I remember Gaga bringing meatballs to St. Jerome’s, and they tasted like the meatballs at Joanne, you know? And they’re not paying me to say that; it’s still the same, you know what I mean? It’s very cool and it’s truly a New York story. As a kid from Cleveland, I was here maybe five years, four years before all that happened, and then it still is a long road to playing music full time and doing what we’re doing now, and leading into all this, all this other beautiful stuff.”
Newman recently wrapped a run of shows at Café Caryle, where he also had a residency last year, and staged a late-night variety show at The Box in Lower Manhattan called “After Dark.” On Saturdays in November and December, he’ll perform at the Flatiron Room, and on Wednesdays he’ll be at The Club Room at the Soho Grand Hotel.
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